Wednesday, June 13, 2007

911 From A Hospital

I don't care how over loaded hospitals are, I know about poverty, illegal aliens, broken health care, minor illnesses in ER, I know all of that, when a woman is on the floor writhing in agony vomiting blood she shouldn't have to worry that no one will care for her. I don't care if she's a purple martian, there is such a thing as humanity.

The idea that someone would find it necessary to call 911 to get medical help from a hospital leaves me stunned. It is quite simply beyond comprehension. And, she died there, on the floor, 45 minutes, of a perforated bowel.

2 comments:

Jenni Simonis said...

ER waiting rooms can be a real pain in the ass sometimes.

I sat in one one time with my arm bleeding. There was maybe 2 or 3 other people in the waiting room. The place was pretty empty.

Yet I sat there bleeding for nearly an hour before they called me back to take my temp, blood pressure, and have me clean the wound.

Then I got to sit for another 30+ minutes in the waiting room (still with my towel from home wrapped around the wounds) before I got to go back to a room.

Another 40 minutes or so later a doctor comes back. He gives me a shot in the area and then does a few sutures. Doesn't check the wound out or anything to see what kind of damage the raccoon did when she took two chunks out of my arm.

Calls me crazy when I tell him I can feel him putting the sutures into my arm.

Well, guess what. Come to find out, pain meds don't work so well on me. During my c-section I felt the doctor cutting, even though I couldn't see them. They had to give me morphine and knock me out.

At the dentist they have to give me a double dose before they can start the work.

So I wasn't crazy - they just didn't give me enough pain meds. And I had to sit there and feel the tools as he sutured my arm up.

And apparently there's lasting damage underneath the skin. Maybe to a ligament or something. I can't use the arm for any length of time for anything strenuous. And that pulling you feel in your arm when you flex it? Not present in that arm whatsoever.

I hate the ER.

Chuck Butcher said...

My mother was an RN, specialized in trauma - ER & after. You get tough when you're raised by someone whose dealt with that stuff. All business & I was pretty reckless, so I got the benefit of her experience pretty frequently.

Pain killers and anesthesia are darn near pointless with me. Dental work requires 2x the max dose for a 280 pounder (my un-named Dentist shudders whenever he sees me, I require a violation of protocol), there's all of 145 pounds of me. Putting me under requires darn near fatal dosages, best I don't require it.

I've never been poorly treated in a hospital, but they're seldom impressed with the severity of injury until they actually look at it, they seem to think somebody that badly hurt should be freaked, well, as I mentioned, I was raised by an RN and I know immediate emergency first aid so panic is silly and pointless, just makes your heart rate go up and your judgement go down.

I know the sensation you mentioned, my right hand isn't right. oops